Tag Archives: L-Series

BlackBerry's new BB10 phones, among them L-Series, were heavily leaked this week

So, there's still two weeks to go until BlackBerry officially unveils their two new BB10 phones, but after this week, is there really anything to show that we haven't already seen? Both the all-touch L-Series phone – also known as the Z10 – and their Qwerty/touch X10 popped up in leaks all over the place, leaving little to the imagination before the big reveal.

For starters, there was what Gizmodo called "the clearest shots yet of BlackBerry's great Qwerty hope," referring of course to the X10. Though there's only so much a picture can say about a device, the N-Series phone looks like a slicker, more modern update to the "conservative simplicity" that RIM's always excelled at, says Gizmodo.

As for the L-Series, we've already seen our fair share of pictures of the new all-touch BlackBerry phone, but this week revealed a couple of juicy details that were new to us at least.

A pretty thorough video demonstration of the Z10 and its features was posted online by German site TelekomPresse, and you can view it at the end of this post.

But just in case you were still hungry for hard facts, a leaked Rogers training manual – slides of which were secured by Techradar – has been making the rounds, revealing the actual specs behind BlackBerry's first all-touch phone.

If the leak is to be trusted, the L-Series will sport a 4.2" high-def screen (1200 x 768 pixels), an 8 MP rear-facing camera and a 2MP front-facing camera. It features 2GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage, and will be powered by a Snapdragon processor.

Now, all that remains is to learn the release date for the new BlackBerry phones, which we should find out at RIM's BB10 event, scheduled for January 30.

It's that, for so many, the draw of BlackBerry is its signature Qwerty keypad, something RIM has done away with in their upcoming all-touch device – or have they?

Actually, judging from a new hands-on video detailing the new BB10 touch keyboard, and according to Gizmodo, the "BlackBerry 10 touch screen keys could rival even its traditional keyboards."

For starters, RIM's made the transition from physical keyboards to all touch keys pretty seamless. As Blackberry's Head of Software Portfolio Vivek Bhardwaj explains in the demo video, the keypad of the new L-Series device has stayed true to the look of traditional BlackBerry keyboards, right down to the signature "frets." So it looks and feels like the blackBerry devices you're used to.

Where it does differ from the original is that the new touch keyboard is more intuitive and intelligent than its predecessor. It automatically separates words when you forget to hit the space bar, it understands context, learns your personal vocabulary, and knows when to switch between languages.

A couple of days ago, we posted a teaser image released by RIM of the upcoming BlackBerry 10 all-touch device on Pure Mobile's Canadian blog. At the time, it seemed exciting, the first real glimpse of the L-Series, not just some bogus leak. And it confirmed that images of the device leaked previously weren't really the real deal.

But what a difference two days make. Thanks to super detailed pictures and a lengthy video leaked by Vietnamese site Tinhte.ve, the RIM-sanctioned teaser pic of the L-Series now looks "lame" by comparison, to quote TechCrunch.

While the teaser pic had left us wanting more, the Tihnte.ve leak gave us pretty much a full showing of BlackBerry newest, and perhaps sexiest, smartphone. Of course, that's assuming the handset shown off in their 5-minute video and high-res pics is the final design, but we have very good reason to believe that's the case.

The device shown in the leak sports the same textured back as the the L-Series does in RIM's official teaser pic

First off, it's got the same mesh-textured backing we saw in the L-Series the teaser pic, and which was lacking from BlackBerry devices in previous leaks. Meanwhile, says TechCrunch, if it isn't the final design, it's at least "very recent," since the handset is equipped with "the recently-renamed BlackBerry World App."

So what's the scoop? We couldn't help but notice – and these feelings were confirmed by Gizmodo – that the device looks a heck of a lot like the iPhone 5 in some shots, though it's perhaps a little bit slimmer, proportionally. Though its rounded rectangular shape is also not unlike the BlackBerry London pics we started seeing over a year ago.

But it's also not far off from the BlackBerry Dev Alpha B smartphone handed out to developers last year, in that the placement of its front-facing camera, front speaker, microphone, and BlackBerry logo are more or less the same. With the removable back panel off, it reveals an 1,800 mAh battery, and microUSB, micro-HDMI, and microSD slots.

Opinions on BlackBerry's latest and greatest, though perhaps premature, are certainly abundant, ranging from ravingly enthusiastic to underwhelmed. "This is going to blow the iPhone out of the water," "Go home Blackberry, you're drunk and dead in the water, it's an Android and iOS world now," are just a sampling of the responses found in the comments for the Tinhte video.

For our part, we're waiting to get more details on the real guts of the device, and to see how it works with the new BB10 OS when BlackBerry officially unveils it on January 30. But in the meantime, we're giving it the benefit of the doubt and hoping it'll be the best smartphone BlackBerry's made in years, or at least good enough to pull RIM out of its recent troubles.

First off, apologies for the blurriness of the above photo. But hey, with leaks about upcoming and yet-to-be-revealed technology, we'll take what we can get.

What you're looking at here may just be the Qwerty keypad for the BlackBerry 10 N-Series Qwerty/touch device. The image leaked from Chinese tech site iiBerry, and was picked up by CrackBerry and Mobile Syrup both. And despite its really poor quality, it's actually the best shot we've seen yet of (a part of) BlackBerry's newest Qwerty device.

So what can we take away from the shot? Well, the keypad does certainly have that signature BlackBerry look, though, as CrackBerry points out, the curved chrome frets of the BlackBerry Bold line have been replaced with straight ones.

RIM has already announced that they'll be officially unveiling their new devices – which include the N-Series Qwerty/touch device as well as an L-Series all-touch phone – January 30. So we'll only be able to confirm then what the new BB10 Qwerty phone will look like.

In the meantime, we wait and pray that some third-party BlackBerry accessories manufacturer lets another pic of the new BB10 devices leak out.